Upper back pain after Judo

Last week I had a hard practice with a pretty spirited randori session and now my whole neck and upper back are strained, it's hard to pick things up and to turn my head.
I would appreciate any ideas or suggestions on rehabbing my injuries because the rest of my body feels fantastic and I want to get back to training as soon as possible.

I tend to get a specific muscle or group of muscles in my upper back pulled during judo training, leading to stiff neck and interesting discoveries of the "oh, getting stuff from the top shelves didn't always black me out from pain, did it?"-kind, but I chalk that up to getting old and not warming up and loosening up enough. Spend some extra minutes stretching and loosening up your upper back muscles before training - seems to work for me. Still, I'll be testing that gel judoka_uk mentions I reckon.

It might be illegal in the US because Ibuprofen is a Non steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug a.k.a NSAID. Don't know about Sweden, when I went to Sweden it was to visit my girlfriend and so she was the only one pulling my muscles... waaay!

I and most other combat sport guys use the gel, because it can be topically applied to the inury point and so acts more directly in its anti-inflammatory capacity on the affected area.

I also use Deep Heat not sure what that's called outside of the US gel is best, try and avoid the spray because its less efficient and stinks out everywhere you spray it.

It might be illegal in the US because Ibuprofen is a Non steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug a.k.a NSAID. Don't know about Sweden, when I went to Sweden it was to visit my girlfriend and so she was the only one pulling my muscles... waaay!

Hehehe yup, a Swedish girl is my main reason for being here too, though I'm Norwegian by birth... well, ibuprofen in pill-form is unregulated here but I haven't seen it in gel-form (I think). There's some acetylsalicylicacid (bugger knows if that's close to the English words for it) based gels available but they require you to stay out of sunshine for 2 weeks or some such nonsense... are those eejits totally unaware of how little sunlight we actually get up here in the cold north?? Now we've finally got decent temperatures outside (ran 6 km in splendid sunshine today, 20-odd degrees celcius) I am NOT going to deny my corpse-pale skin some delicious UV-rays just because of a daft gel... :-)

Hehehe yup, a Swedish girl is my main reason for being here too, though I'm Norwegian by birth... well, ibuprofen in pill-form is unregulated here but I haven't seen it in gel-form (I think). There's some acetylsalicylicacid (bugger knows if that's close to the English words for it) based gels available but they require you to stay out of sunshine for 2 weeks or some such nonsense... are those eejits totally unaware of how little sunlight we actually get up here in the cold north?? Now we've finally got decent temperatures outside (ran 6 km in splendid sunshine today, 20-odd degrees celcius) I am NOT going to deny my corpse-pale skin some delicious UV-rays just because of a daft gel... :-)

Knowing nothing of your injury or broader physical situation, and having no scientific backing, I'd like to share my anecdotal experience.

I did judo and BJJ a lot, stretched my back a lot (cobra and knees-to-ears), and developed a lower back strain that took months to heal. RICE and NSAIDs helped in the short term, yoga helped in the intermediate term, but lifting weights (heavy below-parallel squats and heavy, careful deadlifts) are fixing the root cause. Namely, I had a weak back.

Again, I'm not sure if this carries over to your situation, but this realization helped me.

What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. -Xenophon's Socrates